WILDERS’S LECTURE NOT AT AVENTIN PALACE/DUTCH RIGHTIST POLITICIAN WILL NOT ARRIVE IN PRAGUE December 2, 2009

Dutch rightist politician will not arrive in Prague Controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders will not arrive in the Czech Republic next week as the organisers failed to find a place for him to deliver a lecture on freedom of speech and Islamisation of Europe, one of them, Edvard Steinsky, told CTK yesterday. He said this was a result of fear of Muslims and political correctness. Steinsky said Wilders postponed his visit after the third venue of his lecture was cancelled. However, Czech Muslims offered to Wilders on Monday that they would lease lecture rooms in Prague and Brno for a discussion with him. The representatives of Czech Muslims claim that right-wing extremists like Wilders fear an open discussion. Senator Jiri Oberfalzer (Civic Democrats, ODS), one of those who invited Wilders, said people were afraid to enable an expression of one’s opinions. Owners of conference rooms allegedly refused to offer any room for Wilders’s lecture. Steinsky said the owners were scared that Muslims would take revenge. “There is no threat of violence from Czech Muslims,” Lukas Lhotan, said spokesman for Libertas Independent Agency, a Czech Muslim organisation. Steinsky said the owners of the Aventin Palace and the Kaiserstein Palace in Prague withdrew from the lease contracts at the last moment. Wilders was originally to lecture in the Senate, upper house of parliament, on November 30 at the invitation of the Senate media commission, headed by Oberfalzer. However, the commission abolished Wilders’s invitation to the Senate last week after Senate chairman Premysl Sobotka (ODS) and the ODS dissociated themselves from the event. Wilders, critic of Islamism and immigration, was to screen his anti-Islamic film Fitna that combines shots from terrorist attacks after the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001 and anti-West speeches accompanied by Quran recitation.

Wilders’s lecture not at Aventin Palace
25/11/2009- Controversial Dutch rightist politician Geert Wilders, whose lecture in the Czech Senate was cancelled, will not be able to give it in the Aventin Palace in Prague centre on Monday either, its representative Petra Salavova told CTK yesterday. The eurabia.cz portal, organising Wilders’s stay in Prague, reported on Tuesday that Wilders’s lecture would take place in the Aventin Palace. CTK has not yet contacted portal editor-in-chief Edvard Steinsky for comments. “The lecture was not to and will not take place in the Aventin Palace. We thereby distance ourselves from the event,” Salavova told CTK, adding that no one had asked for staging the lecture on the premises. Wilders is to speak on freedom of speech and “Islamisation” of Europe in Prague on Monday. Steinsky, who along with Civic Democrat (ODS) senator Jiri Oberfalzer have invited Wilders to the Czech Republic, told CTK earlier yesterday that only invited guests would attend Wilder’s lecture. He justified the step by the limited capacity of the conference hall in the Aventin Palace where Wilders will speak. The portal has invited selected politicians, journalists and academicians to the lecture. The lecture will be recorded and be available on the Eurabia.cz portal then, Steinsky added. Moreover, the portal has offered to other journalists to attend the lecture if they register, and promised to give a press conference with Wilders, he added. Wilders was originally to lecture in the Senate, upper house of parliament, at the invitation of the Senate media commission, headed by Oberfalzer. However, the commission abolished Wilders’s invitation to the Senate last week after Senate chairman Premysl Sobotka (ODS) and the ODS dissociated themselves from the event. Wilders, critic of Islamism and immigration, was to screen his anti-Islamic film Fitna, an Arabic word used to describe discord, that combines shots from terrorist attacks after the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001 and anti-West speeches accompanied by Quran recitation.